Rating: 
Summary: Not even one star: a disgrace
Review: Marlo Morgan, you are a disgrace. This book sickened me considerably. You are but the worst. Everything you wrote is a filthy big lie. I urge all readers to stay away from this piece of nonsense. Morgan you know nothing of inidgenous Australia but decided to exploit the culture by presenting your lies to the world.
Rating: 
Summary: ???
Review: Okay, I'll admit that I've apparently missed something here. What is the uproar all about. Ms. Morgan has written a fantasy. That she's profited from the naivete of the audience who believed her fiction to be real is something she will live with. She may be unscrupulous but has she committed a different crime than all those before her who glamorized the made to order histories of Native Americans or fictionalized accounts of Oriental mystics. If Aborigines feel slighted then Ms. Morgan has supplied them with a cause they can use to their advantage.
Isn't there silver in every cloud. I found the alleged tenet of the book inspiring. As for its readability, alas only three stars.
Rating:
Summary: Some questions for thoughtful readers
Review: Thank you Marlo for sharing your experience.
I appreciate the possibilities you showed me.After 2 years, I figured out who the God of this book is. This God believes the spiritual state is better than the physical state. This God has a spiritual body but not a physical body. This God wants the aborigines to return to their supposedly superior spiritual life and stay there. (He doesn't mention resurrection.) This God says people may stop reproducing. The only true God has not modified his command to multiply and replenish the earth. The God of this book says the earth is dying. I guess he can't do anything about that. Even though Marlo learned a lot, the "real" people violated her free agency when they kidnapped her and made her go on this trek. For me, the real message of these "real" people is to develop more faith in my God, Jesus Christ. The possibilities are endless.
Rating:
Summary: Who's her podiatrist?
Review: From the title I initially thought this book was about strange messages from that certain place where the sun don't shine to the rest of your body, but it's actually a very different sort of book. Still, I have enough trouble getting my teenage daughter's meaning correct, so the last thing on my mind is worrying about "mutant meanings from downunder." But Dr. Morgan went 1400 miles on a walkabout with a group of Australian aborigines, and whether the revelations in this book are true or not, I at least have to admire her podiatric fortitude, since I count myself lucky these days if I can just make it to the fridge and back one more time to score another Foster's.
Rating: 
Summary: Ethnographic hogwash conveys existential inspiration
Review: I am deeply appreciative of the other reviewers who have taken issue with the enormous ethnographic inaccuries of this work. The book attempts to enshroud itself in the enigma of "is it truth or is it fiction?" As with the work of Carlos Casteneda, the state of agnosis regarding historical veracity requires the reader to take a leap of faith. Are the "Real People" she walks with across Australia, in fact, real? Many readers would like to insist that they are, simply because some of the concepts presented in the book are wonderfully inspiring. The Real People can heal a broken bone in a day, find food and water in the most desolate outback desert, and -- most astoundingly -- communicate via telepathy. These aboriginal people see themselves as the only ones who have not become "mutants," the rest of us humans, who have lost touch with their fundamental powers and tried to rely on logic and technology, letting the left brain lead us to the brink of devastation. I am inspired by the ideas of rapid, energetic healing, by telepathy, longevity, and by the ability to live comfortably outdoors as a hunter/gatherer. In fact, I would love to believe that ancestral peoples had that ability and that somewhere in our future we all might develop such abilities. My own "leap of faith" even asserts that as the powers of the mind continue to be discovered and explored, some or all of these experiences may be within reach of the human condition. For that reason, I appreciate this book. It reminds me of ideals and values that are somewhat foreign to my daily experience, yet ones which resonate deeply with my innermost being. What truly disappoints me about this work, however, is that it is false ethnography that is being circulated around the globe in many languages, communicating misinformation about an ancient people who deserve to be represented truthfully. It also disturbs me that, after reading this book, the misinformation that now misguides my curiosity about the Aborigenes will probably get in the way of my appetite to explore the less glamorous realities of their way of life. Alas. The bottom line for this book: It is ethnographic hogwash that, nonetheless, conveys a deep source of existential inspiration. Even though the stories are historically false, they do point to possibilities for a better way for each and all of us. Like the Book of Mormon, you could base a whole religion on this book, simply because the spiritual content speaks directly to the heart. The weight of the existential truth convinces people that it must also be factual truth -- an easy conflation made by millions of people every day. To the author I offer a hearty "thanks" and also a big "shame on you."
Rating:
Summary: ugly, badly written fraud
Review: It's extremely rare that Australian aborigines choose one person to speak for them collectively, this book made it happen. Robert Eggelston, director of an aboriginal cultural institute was empowered by a coalition of many tribes to condemn this book as a fabrication and a fraud. He travelled in the outback for 16 months trying to find any aborigines who had heard of Ms Morgan or the 'Real People' tribe she claims to have met. No one had. Is it plausible that a previously unknown American woman would discover a tribe that has evaded discovery by european settlers for 200 years and by other tribes for 50 000 years or more? Morgan claims her story is true, and only sold as a novel to protect this special tribe. But almost every page of this book contains "facts" that are so wildly innaccurate that it is inconcieivable that she experienced anything of the desert, let alone ancient nomadic ways and lore. She describes cutting her feet horrendously while walking over spinifex grass, but spinifex grows in clumps and in the desert is widely spaced. Not even experienced bushman can walk around in the desert sun heat without a hat, the way Ms Morgan claims she has. People die doing that, including aborigines. Ms Morgan survives, however and even meets crocodiles out there. The tribe she describes is nothing like any other aborigines in Australia, but surprisingly similar to American Indians. This tribe has a chief, like no other in Australia, and he wears a head dress of parrot feathers. Names and tribal structures are completely unlike anything in ANY Australian tribe, but, again, more like Native Americans, as are desriptions of rituals, and musical instruments. Her descriptions of nomad life often seem derived partly from books and partly from pure fantasy. Her 'tribe' pay no respect to territories of other tribes, enter sacred sites without ritual preparation, carry all sorts of stuff with them and use valuable water for cooking. They collect dingo droppings for fuel - although dead wood is far more plentiful. Her description of the way didgeridoos are made is completely wrong.They are cut from living trees, not dead ones; termites are found on the inside not on the outside (they die in heat and light); and they do not make "sawdust" - they digest wood. Anyone who has actually seen this could not make these kind of errors. This book is neither fact nor fiction. It misrepresesents exploits indigenous Australians with its claims of authenticity, and exploits her readers' spiritual longing and desire to connect with and learn from the indigenous peoples of the earth. The fact that this book has achieved mainstream popularity indicates a genuine and widespread desire to learn about aboriginal spirituality. I find it a tragedy that this gap is being filled by such a culturally worthless piece of deception.
Rating:
Summary: Why isn't there a no-star rating for this offensive
Review: Perhaps my least favourite thing about this shoddy attempt to cash in on a culture that has suffered immensely for the past two centuries is the author's assertion that these allegedly "pure" Aborigines are choosing not to reproduce. European and North American readers may not be aware that Australian Aborigines were subjected to an official government policy of destroying family groups, removing children and attempting to breed out Aboriginal blood. Very many Aboriginal people today view this as genocide, so to suggest that a group of "pure" Aborigines, whether fictional or factual, are choosing to let their race die is quite possibly the single most offensive thing a white woman from Kansas could invent.
I'm sorry the author decided that Aborigines were sufficiently exotic and far away to dispense with even the most glancing attempts at research. I'm even sorrier that this offensive cocktail of codswallop continues to be printed, to the deep distress of many Aboriginal people. I doubt Harper Collins would have reprinted it if the author had chosen Jews or American Negroes as a vehicle for her cultural appropriation.
Rating:
Summary: unfortunately....it's fiction
Review: At first, since I've been enthralled by Australia and aboriginal culture, I read this and loved it. Without thinking, without engaging critical analysis. But then I started putting together the pieces and comparing this book with all the others I've read and wondering about the discrepancies. So, this book becomes a 3 star instead of 5. Although the concensus of Aboriginal peoples seems to be that this book is an outrage, I did find many concepts worth turning over in my mind. So, beware...don't be taken in as I was before doing research.
Rating:
Summary: What I Think...
Review: Mutant Message Down Under, by Marlo Morgan is a book of non-entertaining fiction. First of all, it is not a factual book, and probably not even based on some factual events, because then it would have been classified as non-fiction, or realistic fiction. If you observe the rear cover you will notice the genre the book is given is "fiction." Meaning that this book is neither factual nor derived from factual events. As reader628 stated earlier, there is no human way that a group such as this could communicate telepathically. Marlo Morgan notes that the reason she was told of(that they could communicate this way) was because they "had nothing to hide." This is a sorry excuse for a sorry piece of writing. Also, If Ms. Morgan was really walking around the hot, waterless Australian outback, without any form of protection from the sun, She would have skin cancer. This so-called "book" is a horrendous excuse of writing that should not be read by any type of realistic reader. Thank You, You've been great, Enjoy!!!
Rating: 
Summary: A bizarre luncheon
Review: that lasted three months. Marlo Morgan embarges on a journey deep into the mysterious origin of the human soul by finding herself in the company of Australian Bush People. Her story is a master piece of style and suspense, iridescent nuances and intelligent insight. Being raised in a left-brain world to become water.... is a miracle. Mutant Message Down Under is one of the greatest books you will ever have the privilege to read. Left-brained critics on their dishonest search for the truth give this "hoax" only one greedy star. If I had more stars, I would add a few from the Milky Way. gerborg
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